Northroader

V. Interesting, the stuff that happens on this web that gets totally overlooked is amazing when you do cach up with it. What d'you think? Going over to 1 guage? I saw a very simple German branch line in this size at a show a while back, and the mass of the models in movement really grabbed you.

Like Mr. Brown would say, "it looks very capable": maybe a touch more bolster packing, fix the window bars, and then a repaint to match the other coach, and you'll be much more happier about it. I don't think the waist height is a problem.Whoever would have picked that shade of green?

Birmingham ain't far enough, try South Georgia Islands.

The modelling output has dropped off recently, (think granddaughters, chickenpox, half term holiday, also six nations on the TV) but I can take you on a tour of the fiddle yard. I'm firmly fixed to the idea of cassettes, the main reason is you can keep a train set intact for the next trip without any uncoupling, handling, or rerailing, and quickly get it to storage. The other gains are no points to individual sidings are needed, keeping the length down, and also the cassette can substitute for the points at the "country end" of your station in shunting moves, with more space saving, also complication and cost. The idea was written about by Chris Pendleton in the Model Railway Journal, no.27, 1988, credit where it's due. (This one also featured Borchester, so a vintage issue) His cassettes had aluminium angle sides, which I copied, but realised this was an expensive way of doing this. The ones for Washbourne use a base of 7ply, 10mm thick, 26"long, 3"wide. The material came from an old cupboard shelf, and tends to keep flat without warping, and is sufficiently strong around the handle holes. The tracks are laid straight on to this, and supported at the ends by copperclad glass fibre circuit board, screwed to the base. The tracks register with those on the main board by having short lengths of 2.5mm o/d brass tube soldered to the outside web of the rail all round, then longer pieces of .060 brass rod soldered inside the station end tubes. This serves to line the tracks up, and act to carry the electric feed. When it is juiced up, if the train sticks, I find a twitch at the free end of the cassette will normally get the train moving.

The cassettes have handles attached to help move them. These are from aluminium strip 15mm x 2mm, (B&Q) which is formed around a rectangular block 4.25" x 3.25" rounded corners. The handles project out from the base, so it is just as well the station track centres are over the GOG recommendation of 80mm, being 100mm, as this also helps with runround clearance. I use countersunk 5mm machine screws to fix them to the base. I was planning for three train sets, plus some spare bits, so allowed for four cassettes side by side. You'll notice one is still waiting for track, as I've run out of sleeper strip for now. I found the fiddle yard "tray" also needed widening to take the four cassettes, so a piece of old fence post has been added to the back with a strip of hardboard on top. The tray now measures 28" x 13.75", and has a strip of 0.125" ply 4" high facing all round, with a higher piece of hardboard at the back. One feature of the handles is the flat top, so one cassette can be placed on top of another. This is very useful when rearranging the cassettes in the yard, although I don't leave them like this, it would be tempting fate too much. You can see this in the picture, it looks as if Washbourne is well placed for coal supplies"

Lining out? I reckon you can go too fiddly, so rather than succumbing to the temptation of picking out the top of all the panelling strips, just do the horizontical one below the windows? Then plastikard steps to reach the end platforms, even if you've got full height platforms, as per Lambourn Valley and Midland examples, buffers, and maybe something on the roof, lamps oil/ gas, and ventilators.

On the idea of doing vertical match boarding, rather than individual strip, file down the sides to clear the destination board and strips off, then stick on some sheet, evergreen scale models vee groove gives a very neat job, although cost, at around £6 a sheet, rears its ugly head.

Mr. Nearholmer, sir, I suppose the place to look for coarse scale Wild West coaches would be Lionel? although the "coarseness" of their bogies might have you wishing to replace them with something a little less...

Why would you want to stick a dog on the side of the coach?

That bit between KX and Waverley?

That coach you've made isn't a million miles, in looks, from the saloon of the steam railcar of your other thread, and this looks well in two colours. I'd suggest the ventilators above the windows get the dark green , then do some lining out in yellow/ orange.

I didn't know you could milk kangaroos?

While the baseboards were down, I've been working on a variety of jobs; feeder jumpers, wiring tidy-up, track and point control, end piece for the new headshunt, narrowing the gap on the scenic back, etc. Now it's all back together and in place, and I can run trains over all the new layout. Everywhere you look, there's a hatful of work to do, but I feel I've reached a milestone in what I started last November, so time for two pictures of the new lines, to contrast with those in my first post. I was hoping to do "before and after" pictures, but I've had a "Senior moment" and can't find the November ones in my stuff!

I'm also putting in a drawing of the new track layout, which I hope you'll agree is a big improvement. Just moving a train up and down and throwing points feels better, although obviously the shunt lead at the far end is badly needed.

Interested to hear the venerable Stationmasters comments on the DCC being the man in charge of the control office shift. I always assumed as he was called the deputy there must be a CC sitting in an incense filled apse somewhere, but I never heard from him or saw him. Was there such a being? The night shift DCC was usually the one I got, after he had come in, sat down, had a scratch and a cup of tea, would decide to ring me, just as I was going to bed, and with a barely supressed chuckle in his voice, tell me about some derailment that somehow had just come to light.

"Okay, agent Sculder, now we're locked in the comfort room of a Boeing flying at 300 knots, can you tell me why the FBI want us in England?" "I'm sorry, Mulley, we have to observe communications protocol, this is big. The agency have uncovered a shadowy organisation there called RMweb, who have been infiltrated by an alien." "Are you sure? It doesn't seem probable to me" "Our signals experts are getting communications from planet 36E in the Zog nebula, Mulley. There's an extra terrestrial here in humanoid form, colored a bright Malachite Green." "Malachite Green, Sculder???, but that's so weird and unworldly!!" "The analysts say he's very good at using the banter, which is how this network masks their activities, but recently he's gone very serious and started asking questions about electricity." "OMG, Sculder, if that alien can begin to understand electricity, it means...." "Exactly, agent Mulley, the end of the world as we know it!! The truth is out there......"

Nice piece of kit, but can it machine to a hundredth of a millimetre, which is what you need if you're modelling to 18.83 MM. gauge?

The trouble with driftwood is there's a lot of salt in it, so it spits badly. Hope your wood burner is enclosed. We used an open grate, and ended up with embers burning a hole in the settee. Expensive!

Nothing to do with Norfolk, but to tie up loose ends, the BishopsCastle railway had an important cattle market at one end, Craven Arms, so their vans could have just been used locally to get cattle to the market, after which the cattle would be loaded up again on the main line systems.

There were block cattle trains passing through from Fishguard mainly, I think, to Banbury, then possibly on interregionally, in the sixties. These were more for markets for slaughter rather than fattening. At S.T.J. there was a scheduled stop for them to be watered, but I don't think they left the wagon, unless they were "down" i.e. not standing, in which case a check had to be made to see why.

OK, boss, staff suggestion coming up, what about "Castle Court"? It's City of London, although not recognisably so, and deserves recognition for escaping both the Luftwaffe and the developers. (I think I'd prefer to take my chance with the Jerries) And then there's the chop house, with all its history, and only a very rare treat for me these days. How does that sound?

Definitely go for having a coal siding, as you can have some goods wagons appearing, and vary your shunting.

Looking at the photos, first drawing referred to is the same as the small photo, second one doesn't match any of photo details, but as it dates to after Adams took over, it's got small dome with s.v's and stovepipe chimney. Out of interest, I scaled some sizes off the drawing: GER T7: wheelbase, 6'9"+7'8", drivers 5'3", trailers 3'8", length over buffers 27'6"

GWR 48xx/14xx. 7'4"+8'2". 5'2". 3'8". 29'11"

One of your photos shows a cab, the drawings show open air with spectacle plate. I'm not familiar with a GWR OO model how far the works stick into the cab, but I think you'll agree you could manage a "chop" job without too much trouble?

On the T7 drawing issue, I've had difficulty joining the dots, but I think you can find this in the Oakwood Press series, edited by Mike Sharman. Portfolio series, volume 3, "the G.E.R, part 1", which was the series of 7mm drawings done extracted from old Locomotive Magazine blocks. Plan 24 is of no. 84, 0-4-2T, built 1873, plan 25 is no.16, 0-4-2T, built 1875. The first shows original Johnstone state, the other is a bit after. Just side elevation, no end. They do look quite delectable.

I'm practising the "art of coarse railwaying" (it's got a nice ring to it), in finescale.

Presume for things like bananas. There'd be a difference between keeping them fresh and not getting too cold, particularly in the Canadian climate. Remember banana vans in this country had steam heating (even temperature of 56 F, it says in GWR wagons book)

Oh golly! I usually go for a cut- off date of around 1900, but all the talk of steam rail motors on this thread makes me wonder if in some cases I couldn't just stretch a point and add just a few more years? At the Reading ALSRM show in the spring, there was always one dear old boy who specialised in building nothing but, and would always turn up with a magnificent collection on display. Sadly, he wasn't there last year, which made me fear the worst.

It's nice to see the GWR sneaking into a Norfolk layout, I suppose through running would be a bit too much to hope for. Still, you're in for a colourful time if you mix the home road scheme (?) with MGN yellow and GER blue. I do hope there's no "connotations" in the name Birchoverham, it sounds like a particularly grim boarding school?

The baseboard is still down, so we'd best have a look at another item of rolling stock, this time a refrigerated car. Most of the US ones were built with just two ice bunkers at each end of the car. Prior to loading, the hatches were lifted and ice blocks, frozen brine, dumped inside. For some reason, possibly more floor space or improved circulation, the Canadian lines built their cars with eight bunkers equally spaced along the car, so are quite distinctive. The headroom must have been restricted inside as a result, as you'll see from the low door height. One small detail is that they had charcoal fired heaters as well, that's the small box just visible under the door.

A Canadian friend sent me an article from the Railroad Model Craftsman, protofile 28, a long time ago, and the dates have got trimmed off, so that's the only ref. I can give. It can be made from a chop job on a standard Athearn 40' car in HO, in O I made it from a .060 plastikard carcase. The ends are made from my own attempts at resin casting. The main problems were to make a perfectly flat mould, and likewise getting an even thickness in the casting. I decided once I'd used my stock of rubber and resin mixes, I would leave it to the experts. These ends came out quite well, some I've done suffer from temperature expansion and cracks appear at the joins. (Tip: if you ever buy a cast resin load for a wagon, always make sure it's a very loose fit, or after a hot summer you'll find all the body corners have cracked open!)

The sides are thinner plastic sheet, with rivet lines not very successfully embossed on. Bogies are Athearn, couplers Kadee. The car is painted light grey, and C-D-S decals used. I was singing the praises of this firm in the caboose post, I since find they've sold out, and gone mainly narrow gauge. Dealers still stock the old range, but running down. I did some chalk weathering, particularly trying to show rust staining from the brine around the hatches, I hope I didn't get carried away with this.

Looking at those photos, some of them have a snapshot feel, as if taken on a Kodak box, and others have a more dated glass plate camera look. Our family photos looked the same, and if tied down to a ten year spread, I would say the First World War must have been in the middle of it, so 1910 to 1920. Some look really Victorian, and others very strong twenties feel.